Friday, December 15, 2023, 00:55
There are many times when, in situations of extreme vulnerability, people turn their gaze elsewhere. They do not attract attention until they are presented in their rawest form. Necessity has led a homeless man to camp in such a busy and well-known place in Torrevieja as the Palangre curve.
Under the wooden planks that connect Los Locos with the recently renovated Punta Margalla promenade, this person, due to the lack of means to access housing, has been sleeping almost outdoors for weeks under the walkway, where he accumulates umbrellas, fabrics, cardboard and even a foam mattress. Something that, so to speak, has become his home to the astonishment of many people who share the images on networks in surprise.
The City Council, when asked by this newspaper, confirms that it knows first-hand about the case, but assumes that it is not being easy to provide a good and dignified solution to this person, of Moroccan origin. The Councilor for Social Welfare, Óscar Urtasun, says that a worker from his area dealt with him at first. «The Red Cross gave him a change of clean clothes, they took him to a place to shower and clean up. At that time, although he lacked documentation, he expressed his desire to return to his country,” he explains. However, everything indicates that at the last moment he regretted it, since, when the municipal services returned to the curve, he was no longer there.
Now he has set up his 'house' next to the beach again. The services, for his part, would have returned again to offer him repatriation, “but we couldn't find him. “It's being difficult,” says the Torrevieja mayor.
But this case is not the only one. “Many times,” explains Urtasun, “it is difficult for them to let themselves be helped.” In this sense, for example, there is also another person who lives in Plaza Capdepón, next to the terraces of the pizzeria area and a few meters from the 'hippies'. «At first he said that he didn't understand us. We brought a translator and he no longer wants to talk to us. He only says that he lives there and does not want to leave even if we offer him housing.
Torrevieja does not have any municipal resources to house homeless people beyond the scarce social housing with which the Department provides it.
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